Place of the Month

In honor of Jazz Appreciation Month, we are pleased to highlight Barbès, a beloved bar and live music venue, as April's Place of the Month.

Barbès takes its name from an area in northern Paris known for its large North African population and the record stores that popularized Raï —a form of Algerian folk music—in the early 1980s.

In Brooklyn, the name has come to signify a music community, one that is not

attentive to billboards or popular tastes. Having celebrated its fifteenth birthday in May 2017, the

venue has become a platform catering international music from Ghanaian jazz to Slavic soul, from Tropicalia to oud nights and Afrobeat.

Barbès’s founders Vincent Douglas and Olivier Conan, both musicians from France, have lived in the Park Slope area for more than thirty years. When it came to deciding on a location, Douglas said Park Slope was an obvious choice. They started on a shoestring budget and found place in a former barber shop in the South Slope. Today, the venue hosts more than 700 music performances a year, featuring bands from all over the world.